The intersection of culture and leadership

Month: May 2013

“Corporations live or die by their connection to culture.”₁
“Culture matters – it can make or break your company.”₂
“Fixing the culture is the most critical – and most difficult – part of a corporate transformation.”₃
“If you get the culture right, most of the other stuff will just take care of itself.”₄
“Your organization’s culture determines your results, and the results you want should largely determine the kind of culture you need.” ₅

If you ask managers what they find most difficult and challenging in their job, the most common and honest reply is ‘people’. According to Rob Goffee, Professor of Organizational Behavior, London Business School, “success today and tomorrow will depend increasingly on one’s ability to get people to follow you, not because they have to, but because they want to”.Getting things done through others is a fundamental leadership skill. Indeed, if one is unable to do it, they’re not leading. In an attempt to get people to do things, some smother their people, blocking their initiative and creativity. They’re the micromanager, insecure leader who can’t trust others to get it right because they don’t know how to calibrate them and monitor their performance. They wind up making all the key decisions about details themselves, so they don’t have to deal with larger issues. And some even abandon their people altogether. This sort of behavior does not yield the results that are often desired by managers using such techniques.What then should leaders do? First, leaders need to commit as much as 40% of their time and emotional energy, in one form or another, in selecting, appraising and developing people. Leaders are committed to the people process and are deeply engaged in it, so that fundamentally, the right people are in the right jobs.

• A leader’s emotional intelligence creates a certain culture or work environment.

“ A leader’s intelligence has to have a strong emotional component. He has to have high levels of self-awareness, maturity and self control. She must be able to withstand the heat, handle setbacks and when those lucky moments arise, enjoy success with equal parts of joy and humility. No doubt emotional intelligence is more rare than book smarts, but my experience says it is actually more important in the making of a leader. You just can’t ignore it.”- Jack Welch